I´d like to start with song number THREE on THIRTEEN STORIES and ask you what the story is like that you have in your mind when you listen to CHALLENGE…

…some days ago rmbfan2000@gmail.com aked some of you via email:

Hello,
Will you share the new album “Thirteen Stories” of Rolf Maier-Bode?
You could upload it on eMule or differently?

Thanks
Roger Marc Batter

My answer:

hi “rmb fan”

i just wanted to tell you that asking for uploaded copies of records is the fastest way to keep artists from putting time, energy, money and a lot of passion into their work…
people like you wont stop the big players from making music but you are definitly forcing some of the independend musicians to get their money from elsewhere - which simply might keep them from creating music…

go upload some music you DONT like - makes much more sense

ROLF MAIER BODE

For the next weeks i have thought of a way to give you more insights into THIRTEEN STORIES… each week i will concentrate on one song and first ask you about the stories that play in your heads and then reveal what i had in my mind and give you more inside infos…

Nevertheless i also need some good ideas to “promote” the album… If you know of a magazine, blog, website, forum that might be interested in THIRTEEN STORIES just let me know… simply write it down here… or even better get someone from that mag or blog or whatever to get in contact with me -> rolfmb at rolfmaierbode com

Id really like to hear what you think about THIRTEEN STORIES after you have listened to it several times…

And what are your favourite songs after some days…

In the meantime i will be enjoying life - thirtyfive

If you got the CD and at least listened to it from ONE to THIRTEEN in one pass once i would really like to read your first impressions here…

…and if you have an myspcae account i´d really like to get some comments there as well

and i am very happy with the design in actual print… 

The last step of music production is mastering. A process where a (hopefully) skilled mastering engineer tries to improve a finished mix. Its like “photoshopping” for music

The main tools are technically the same as when you are mixing a song - only that in mixing you use these tools for the many sound sources and in mastering you put them on the whole finished mix.

My choice for mastering this album was Steffen Müller. A good old friend living in a little rural city called Viersen. He is also a musician and one of his earlier projects was Microwave Prince - he even did a redemption remix back in 1994… Today he concentrates on mastering and building his own gear - my 1176 clone was build by him as well.

The usual procedure was cutting the resonances with a digital EQ, enhancing some frequencies with his sontec and pultec clone EQs, thickening through an opto compressor, sometimes parallel compression with an 1176 (where i was riding the fader while recording… giving it more dynamic than usual), giving some “glue” with an ssl compressor clone and finally digitally limiting…

The fun thing was that he uses B&W 802 speakers for monitoring and he likes to work with a rather high volume

It was quite dark in there but that didnt harm the ability to listen to the music. The actual size of Steffen´s mastering studio isnt recognizeable in this photo. For instance the screen you see is a 30″ cinema display and the devices in front of Steffen are two rows of 19″ wide rack gear…

Here is a small snippet from song number 9 - BLINDING LIES - BEFORE mastering

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Here is the same part as it will sound on the CD - AFTER mastering

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Its louder and more punchy but also has a bigger bass…

I am really happy to announce that THIRTEEN STORIES is the best sounding electronic record i was ever involved in

RMB was a techno/trance project from 1992 to about 2005. Most of the time it consisted of Farid Gharadjedaghi and me, Rolf Maier Bode. There were musical, economical and personal reasons to quit working together and i dont want to write about it in detail. I dont exactly know what Farid is doing now but one of his projects is mysoundconnection.de and i wish him success.

I was doing music before the succesful years of RMB (beside others confusingly enough under the names of RMB Trax and RMB) and i obviously didnt stop after RMB.

So once again - ROLF MAIER BODE is NOT the same as RMB!

Please allow me to concentrate on the future and my own music. I know that many fans of RMB are sad about the fact that this project is not producing music anymore but i hope that some of you like what i do on my own

everyone with a myspace account without his own music is invited to insert the new snippets from THIRTEEN STORIES into their profile

myspace.com/rolfmaierbode

with or without own music you are invited to a leave a comment if you like

SIMPLY GO TO MY HOMEPAGE AND CLICK ON THE “ORDER THE NEW ALBUM” BUTTON!

www.rolfmaierbode.com

Zur Bestellung des Albums einfach auf meine Homepage gehen und “ORDER THE NEW ALBUM” clicken!

[UPDATE MARCH 2010]  THE FULL ALBUM IS ALSO AVAILABLE ONLINE @ AMAZON (iTunes and others will follow)